


Annie

by TheMewsAtTen



Series: Tomorrow [3]
Category: God’s Own Country, God’s Own Country (2017)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 18:04:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14502552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMewsAtTen/pseuds/TheMewsAtTen
Summary: Gheorghe and Deirdre pore over some old Saxby photographs . . .The third in the six-part series 'Tomorrow'.I hope you enjoy!Come and see me over on tumblr if you're into that kind of thing https://themewsatten.tumblr.comAs ever, I do not claim to own this world or these characters. I write entirely for pleasure, not for profit, and no copyright infringement is intended.





	Annie

Gheorghe knew he should be savouring this moment. He genuinely couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a lie-in. Perhaps it was just the fact that he wasn’t used to it that left him feeling so uneasy about it now.

He’d dismissed the idea when John had suggested it, insisting that Gheorghe was looking off colour when they’d been getting ready for bed the night before. 

Gheorghe had tried to reassure him that he was fine. 

John had given him his sternest Saxby look. “Rest in tomorrow morning, I can manage on my own one time,” he’d said firmly. 

Gheorghe had told him he was fine - again - and that he shouldn’t worry so much. 

“I’m tryin’ to do summat nice for you, why won’t you just _let_ me?” John had sulked. 

So Gheorghe had smiled and nodded knowingly, conceding defeat, a pleasant trickling of warmth in his chest. Then he’d kissed John’s neck until he smiled a little bit because it was tickling, and the argument fizzled out altogether, forgotten in the heat and excitement of a nice hard fuck before they fell asleep, wrapped up in each other against the Yorkshire cold. 

If Gheorghe was being completely honest, he had to admit that John’s habit of glowering like that had quickly turned into a bit of a kink for both of them. His stubbornness drove Gheorghe wild, making him want to rip at fabric and zips and buttons just to get at his bare skin. He loved knowing that he could mollify John so easily; the feel of Gheorghe’s wet lips and rough stubble against that sensitive, almost translucent skin where his neck and his shoulder met made him hard quicker than just about anything else.

Gheorghe _had_ been frustrated about it all, of course, because he really _was_ just fine. He was just tired, like they all were, all the time. They were running a _farm_ , for God’s sake. But he saw it for what it was - John trying to tell him he cared about him. So Gheorghe would wear it, for his sake.

And it turned out he truly _had_ been bone-tired. He hadn’t even stirred when John had got up that morning and left before dawn to tend to the farm. But the sun had soon risen, streaming cold hard light into their bedroom, and Gheorghe could never get back to sleep again after he’d woken up. 

So now he was just laying in bed, tense and restless, thinking of John struggling out there on his own while he was here, of use to no-one.

He decided he’d get up slowly, get clean and dressed and maybe make a start on breakfast for him and John and Deirdre. He wanted to offer to try to do something, _anything_ , for Martin, but it was unlikely he’d even manage out of bed today. He certainly didn’t most days now. 

Gheorghe had never really got the chance to get to know Martin all that well before his most recent stroke, but anyone could see that the effect had been profound this time. It broke Gheorghe’s own heart to watch it slowly break Deirdre’s and John’s. He felt at a complete loss, painfully aware of his own powerlessness.

John seemed to have accepted that Martin wasn’t going to get better, at least, and that the only thing they could really do now was to make him as comfortable as possible. He hadn’t _wanted_ to accept it, and had fought it tooth and nail for weeks, his temper as quick as ever to flare up in a riot of slammed doors and harsh words spat out in rage. 

But something seemed to have shifted between John and Martin after he and Gheorghe got back from Scotland. The stifling tension that had weighed the house down almost constantly before was lighter now, as if the place could finally breathe. There had been no resistance from Martin or Deirdre to Gheorghe being there, or even to him sleeping with John, who had taken to making decisions about the farm considerately, but without apology. Gheorghe had left a farm where Martin Saxby was very much in charge, despite his disability. He had returned to a farm where John had stepped up to run the place and to take care of the people who depended on him. Things felt both changed and unchanged at the same time, but everyone seemed more or less at peace. Perhaps even happy, most of the time.

Washed and dressed, he walked down the stairs and into the dining room to find Deirdre sitting in Martin’s favourite place, next to the window, a steaming cup of tea at her elbow and a tatty old shoebox open on her lap. She gave a start of surprise, but made no attempt to hide whatever it was she was doing.

“Tea in the pot,” she said sharply.

“Thank you,” he answered with a quick smile, and wandered into the kitchen to pour a cup.

He paced back into the dining room and stood at the window for a time, gazing out. He wondered again how John was getting on. Without Gheorghe there, the work would take twice as long. 

He was beginning to consider pulling on his gear and going to help, trying to guess at what kind of a mood John was likely to be in and how he would take the gesture, when he felt something tap gently but definitely against his arm. Deirdre was holding a photograph out to him. Gheorghe took it from her hesitantly, his face crumpling into a huge smile as he stared at it. It had the kind of blurred soft focus that a lot of older photographs seemed to have, as if the sheer force of nostalgia automatically put its own filter on everything after a while. 

“He were about two then,” she said, returning to rifle again through the box. Gheorghe could see now that it was full of photographs; hundreds of them, probably, every size and shape and age, all kinds of people and stories and memories crammed into an otherwise unremarkable shoebox. “Still had fair hair, like his mother. It were mousy like Martin’s by the time he were about 5 or 6. And he thinned out when he were about 12. Then he just grew and grew. That’s Annie there with him. She were young when she caught with our John. Wouldn’t have been much more than 20 when this were taken.”

Gheorghe didn’t really know what he would have expected from a photograph of John as a baby, but this . . . the baby perched on the woman’s hip looked, well, nothing like John, really. All fat pink cheeks and cuddles and giggles, wearing the tiniest pair of denim dungarees Gheorghe had ever seen, he was a million miles away from the John he knew. It was hard to believe that this bubbly little baby would one day turn into dour, jaded Johnny Saxby.

And the woman - Annie, John’s mother - wasn’t really a _woman_ at all. She was a _girl_ , and if Deirdre hadn’t told him she was 20 he would probably have guessed at 18 at the very most. She wore a light blue smock dress that made her blonde hair all the more striking, and she had a startled look about her, clearly struggling with the weight of John balanced precariously against her slight frame. But when he looked carefully, properly, it was as if the puzzle of John’s face and colouring and expressions all made sense when he considered Annie and Martin together. Annie explained all of his sharper edges, and the vulnerability in the eyes was so similar it was haunting. 

“He still angry about her?” Deirdre asked suddenly.

Gheorghe was taken aback. He wished there was a way to reassure Deirdre that wouldn’t offend his ironclad loyalty to John. The feeling of being confided in by her this way left him stunned and disconcerted, and he doubted that all the words she had ever said to him before today would add up to the sum of everything she’d shared with him in just the last few minutes.

Just like her son, and her grandson, Deirdre Saxby was usually a woman of few words. 

“Not angry,” he said eventually. “I think that he is sometimes sad about it. But not angry. Not angry now.”

Deirdre sighed, resting her head back against her chair, and nodded. “Aye, that’ll be havin’ you around. He don’t mope about like the world’s his enemy these days.” She lifted another photograph; one of Annie at the front door to the farmhouse, a little older and unsmiling, standing next to a man with a round, craggy-looking face who couldn’t be anyone but Martin. “I’ll never be able to forgive her. For what she did to my boy, and to our John. I can never forgive her. But she _were_ young. I thought it then, said to Martin she’s young to be settlin’ down, wait a while. They weren’t the first to ignore good advice and they’ll not be the last. Then our John came along. She panicked. I can understand it, even if I can’t forgive it. She turned them both old before their time. Left them to face all the things she’d been so scared of herself. Our John changed overnight. And Martin. But John . . . he couldn’t understand how she could leave if she felt for him, so he went on thinkin’ she hadn’t loved him at all. But I’ll say that for her; I never thought that were true. She loved him. She were just scared.”

“I am sorry.” Gheorghe didn’t know what else to say. His heart ached for Deirdre. Her need was plain to see; her desperate need to hear words that he suspected John would probably never say to her. That he knew he was loved. That he no longer blamed himself. 

“He don’t resent it, you know. Wi’ you ‘ere. Before, it were like he knew in his head it would all fall to him one day, and he didn’t want it. Not sure what young boy _would_ these days. But now he don’t mind it so much. Think he can do it now he’s got you,” Deirdre turned her shocking blue eyes on him. “He loves you. I know. ‘Cos he’s let his guard down. He lets you near him for a start. He don’t do that wi’ anyone else. He were like it wi’ her - wi’ Annie - but he altered when she ran off, wouldn’t come to us when he were upset or when he’d hurt himself, didn’t want us touchin’ him. I know he loses his temper, it happens when he’s scared. No great mystery to it. He couldn’t believe his luck when you came back wi’ him. And now he’s scared you’ll leave again. Like her,” she tilted her chin at the picture of Martin and Annie together.

“I won’t,” Gheorghe said simply.

“Aye,” Deirdre answered slowly, those chipped ice eyes boring into Gheorghe’s own in that meaningful way that could just as easily be affection as suspicion. 

They both jumped as John came barrelling noisily through the front door, his cheeks and nose pink from the cold. He regarded them both, the shoebox on Deirdre’s lap and the photographs in their hands, a look of belligerence and a flash of betrayal on his face.

“Thought _you’d_ still be in bed,” he said accusingly to Gheorghe, refusing to meet his gaze.

“I woke and could not get back to sleep. You . . . you should eat something.” Gheorghe made to head to the kitchen.

John shook his head in refusal and sloped to Gheorghe’s side, peering down at the photograph still balanced between his fingers. Gheorghe felt him tense as he took in the image of himself as a baby, clinging to his waif-like mother, his breath held in the tense silence of the house. 

Gheorghe raised a hand, reaching for him.

“Right. I need to get on,” John's voice trembled slightly as he flinched away from his touch.

“I will come . . .” started Gheorghe, handing the photograph back to Deirdre distractedly and moving to follow him outside.

“S’fine,” John shouted without turning around as he bolted back out of the door, slamming it behind him, leaving Gheorghe and Deirdre staring helplessly at each other.

 

\- - - - - - - -

 

John avoided Gheorghe for the rest of the day, making himself scarce around the farm and finding excuses to get away and keep working when he did eventually track him down.

Dinner was horribly tense, the atmosphere more like Gheorghe’s early days on the farm than the more companionable mood of the last few months. The four of them sat in oppressive silence only broken by the occasional scraping of cutlery against plates. 

Martin, of course, noticed something wasn’t right.

“Matter . . . wi’ you two?” he stammered, red-faced and teeth gritted, when the feeling in the room at last became so unnerving that it was starting to piss him off.

“Nowt,” John barked back before anyone else had the chance to say anything. 

Gheorghe didn’t know whether Martin didn’t have the energy for the quarrel or just preferred not to know about his son’s arguments with his boyfriend. Either way, he fell back into silence when Deirdre shot him a warning glare, and they went back to trying to get the meal over with as quickly as possible.

By the time John disappeared off to bed without him, Gheorghe had decided enough was enough - with a silent nod of encouragement from Deirdre and a hasty ‘goodnight’, he followed him to their room a moment later.

He found John standing with his back to the door, pulling off his sweater. 

“You are angry?” he spoke quietly, trying to gauge John’s mood.

John spun around to face him, his sweater still clasped tightly in his fist. “Why were you pair gawpin’ over those fuckin’ photos while I were out?” he hissed. He looked tired and tearful and _hurt_.

“Deirdre wanted me to see. I am sorry if it upset you.”

John threw his sweater carelessly to the floor, lifting the t-shirt he wore underneath it up and off roughly in one swipe, revealing the pale, sparely muscular chest that fascinated Gheorghe so much. He had committed every inch of John’s body to memory by now, but watching his chest rise and fall rapidly in anger, his muscles moving under the skin, he still found himself transfixed, struggling to remember to feel angry about being ignored all day.

“What the fuck’s her problem? I can’t help how things’ve turned out. I can’t help that _she_ left and I can’t help that she’s still fuckin’ bitter about it. There’s no sense her mithering over it.”

 _Ah,_ thought Gheorghe with a creeping sense of realisation. _You think she blames you. The way you blame yourself._

“What is bothering you? Really?” Gheorghe asked, his voice deliberately low and calm and soothing.

John threw himself down flat on his back on the bed, like a teenager in a tantrum. “I’m not some wounded orphan beast for you to fret over, y’know. I don’t need tendin’ or owt. Can take care of myself. I don’t need everyone pityin’ me," he looked downcast and slightly ashamed suddenly. “I don’t need _you_ pityin’ me.” 

Gheorghe couldn’t help a wry smile at the way John looked at that moment; refusing to meet his eyes, his arms folded tightly - he’d know that look anywhere.

John wasn’t furious anymore. He was just sulking again.

And Gheorghe knew what to do to fix it. 

He walked over to the bed and grabbed John’s chin, forcing him to look at him. “I _know_ ,” he said intently. “I do not pity you. _You_ take care of us. _All_ of us. And I need you . . . to _take care_ of me . . .”

John giggled and rolled his eyes as Gheorghe moved his hand to the bulge at his own crotch, wanting John to feel how hard he was for him. How much he wanted him.

“You’re a kinky beggar, d’you know that?” John growled, palming Gheorghe’s cock through his jeans before pulling him onto the bed and straddling him.

That had been one of the things that took Gheorghe’s breath away about John, that first night on the hill when they’d rolled desperately in the mud, the spark between them white hot under the dark sky. John was _strong_. It was a result of all the manual labour, of course, but it was just as much about the deep passion in him, how he repressed and repressed what he was feeling until he got overwhelmed by it all, like the way their first kiss had broken a dam in him and he’d kissed and kissed and kissed Gheorghe as they fucked in the hut, holding onto him like he was driftwood on open water, clawing at him to get him closer.

Now, he looked down at him like a predator, Gheorghe throwing his head back and letting out a low rumbling laugh. “You are teasing me,” he purred contentedly.

“You love it,” John answered, leaning in to drag his lips over the skin under his earlobe.

When John reached to his fly, Gheorghe gently swatted his hand away, giving him a cheeky wink and biting his lower lip as he slowly popped each button, nearly groaning in relief as the pressure on his hardness was lifted. “You are not angry with me anymore?” he asked roughly.

John watched hungrily, licking his lips. “ _Fuck_ , stop muckin’ about, just let me . . .” John dropped his head impatiently to Gheorghe’s cock.

When he finally felt himself surrounded by the gorgeous wet heat of John’s mouth, Gheorghe had to keep from crying out, reminding himself that Deirdre and Martin were just downstairs and would almost certainly prefer _not_ to have to think about their boy giving a thorough, ravenous blow job in the bedroom upstairs.

“Fuck,” he growled as John wriggled his jeans and pants down just far enough to get at his cock properly, lifting his t-shirt a little to paw at the soft dark hair on his chest and stomach.

John looked up, the corner of his mouth lifting in a smile. He put a finger to his own lips, signalling to Gheorghe to be quiet before letting the head of his cock hit the back of his throat again. And again. And again.

Gheorghe tried to breath deeply, steadily, closing his eyes and throwing his head back again, concentrating on what he was feeling.

He’d only had a few lovers before John; when it came down to it he found he just couldn’t enjoy sex without feelings, and the right feelings were rare. But he’d been with enough men to know that John sucked cock absolutely perfectly. That first time, that rough fumble up on the hill, he’d tried so hard to slow him down, but almost as soon as John had wrapped his mouth around his length he’d known he was lost, even as John had pinned him down, stopping him from reaching out for the skin, the warmth and touch of him that he’d wanted so badly, even then.

Gheorghe was groaning filthily now, just praying that he was staying quiet enough not to tip off Deirdre about what they were doing, and desperately trying to remember to care.

His fingers tightened in John’s hair, signalling to him that he was going to come. He always warned him; didn’t want him to feel he couldn’t pull away. 

But John never pulled away. 

“Ahhh, fuck,” Gheorghe ground out as he came, hard and shuddering, bucking his hips into John’s mouth.

John moved up the bed to lay next to him, facing him, stroking back a strand of Gheorghe’s hair that refused to sit right now that it was a little longer.

Gheorghe pulled him into a kiss. 

“ _That’s_ kinky n’all,” John said weakly.

“I like it. I like to taste myself on you,” Gheorghe admitted, unembarrassed, as he made easy work of John’s fly and began stroking at his cock. John was obviously strung out; a few sure flicks of Gheorghe’s wrist had him burying his face in their pillow to stifle his groans as his cock throbbed and he came between them.

Gheorghe silently thanked God they did their own laundry these days.

They lay together for a while, catching their breath. 

“You were a very lovely baby,” Gheorghe said eventually with a mischievous grin, knowing already how John would react.

“Fuck off,” John huffed, digging a bony elbow into Gheorghe’s side. 

Gheorghe made to tickle John who shrank back defensively, both of them laughing. He loved how ticklish John was, how ready his body was to react to even the most delicate of touches.

John looked up at the ceiling above them, serious suddenly. “I . . .,” he started, his gaze darting and nervous. “I . . . you know I’m glad you’re here, yeah? Just . . . I’m happy you’re here wi’ me. I . . . think we both take care of each other, like. It’s sweet. Know I’m a prick to you sometimes. But I’ve been thinkin’, maybe this place, this life, the farm, like, I don’t know if it’s what I want. All the cold and the graft and the fear in them fuckin’ auction houses and them, the beasts, we tend ‘em right only for them goin’ off to slaughter and that. Feel like I’m peddlin’ nowt but misery. Sometimes think maybe . . . maybe that’s why she left. Me moth- . . . _Annie_. Think maybe she started feelin’ way I’m startin' to feel. I’m not sayin’ I want to leave tomorrow, can’t really wi’ me dad and nan and that but, just . . . I want to think about  . . . would you leave? Would you think about it? One day? Would you come wi’ me, like? Stay wi’ me, if . . . ?”

John looked into his eyes, and Gheorghe saw what was unsaid there - _I do need you. I do need you to take care of me. I do need you to fret over me. And I love you, and please stay. I need to know when the time comes you’ll come with me, that you’ll stay with me if I choose something other than this, right here._

Gheorghe smiled, knowing the words John needed; words that he could give him because they were unchangeably, unavoidably _true_. “I am staying with you,” he breathed. “I am staying with you.”


End file.
